Role Overview
Make your mark on Jewish student life by joining Vanderbilt Hillel as the Springboard Fellow. You will build one on one relationships with students, plan and execute engaging events and programs around campus, and help inspire students to make a commitment to Jewish life. Our Hillel serves over 1,000 Jewish students at Vanderbilt University, and neighboring Belmont and Middle Tennessee State Universities. Our team is proud to create daily programming and engagement opportunities to meet every student where they are along their Jewish journey.
As our Springboard Ezra Fellow, you are a passionate Jewish educator and prioritizes meeting the moment for our Jewish students as they explore their relationship with their faith and tradition. You have a passion for building a bridge between our students' modern lives and the ancient wisdom of our texts and sages. Your focus will be on our Jewish life and learning portfolio, with opportunities to plug into other micro-communities under our Hillel umbrella that spark your passion. You will guide the vision of our holiday, Shabbat, and cohort-based learning opportunities to create a plurality of ways for students to discover how they love to “do Jewish,” and ensure their needs are being met as we march through the holy time of the Jewish calendar. You'll wake up each day (or at least most) and be genuinely excited and enthusiastic about creating an inviting place that inspires students to explore, experience, and create vibrant Jewish lives. This is so much more than your average 9-to-5.
About The Springboard Fellowship
The Springboard Fellowship is a paid, two-year fellowship that brings recent college grads with raw talent, passion, and skills needed to reimagine and redesign Jewish student life to college campuses across North America.
Trained in Relationship-Based Engagement, Human-Centered Design and other entrepreneurial frameworks, you will be exposed to the most successful initiatives from across the Hillel movement. Fellows will work with students to imagine, create, and refine experiences for Jewish life that dramatically impact student engagement, efficiently and strategically apply and scale successful initiatives from across the movement, and give birth to cutting-edge ideas that have the potential to transform how Hillel and creates inclusive spaces for #AllKindsOfJewish.
We’re looking for people who embrace challenges, take risks, fail, and learn from the past, while maintaining their passion and sense of humor. Extensive Jewish education is not necessary — just an interest in creating a vibrant Jewish community, a commitment to learning, and the desire to make a difference in the lives of students.
What You’ll Do
GOALS:
- Collaborate with students to develop and support them in running weekly Shabbat services for our Reform and Conservative minyanim
- Lead 1+ text-based learning cohorts each semester, utilizing Hillel International’s resources with room to create your own new materials and courses as well
- Spearhead our Hillel’s celebration of major holidays including Rosh Hashanah, Yom Kippur, and Passover by working with students, staff, and clergy to identify and meet the Jewish campus community’s needs for service and learning opportunities.
WHAT YOU’LL DO:
- Oversee our Jewish Life Committee student group, directly supervising the committee’s president and attending their weekly meetings, helping them to craft Friday night Shabbat services and grow as service leaders and songleaders
- Create learning and observance opportunities for all minor holidays that occur during the academic year, including Sukkot, Shemini Atzeret, Simchat Torah, Chanukkah, and TuBishvat. We are looking for your creativity to shine as you bring vitality and relevance to the full scope of the Jewish calendar for our community
- Advise one or more micro-communities that spark your passion, such as our Fantasy Football League or Atzmi community for LGBTQ+ Jews and allies, by keeping them connected to the greater Hillel community and helping facilitate programming
- Engage with students 1-on-1 over coffees and meals where you will seek to better understand them and their Jewish identity, and to connect them with our Hillel in ways that will inspire and excite them
- Act as the expert on staff for cultivating moments of Jewish meaning across all of Hillel’s programs
- Participate as a member of the Hillel staff team in major programs, weekly staff meetings, and student executive board meetings
Who You Are
- You’re A Relationship-Builder: You thrive on meeting new people, understanding their interests, and forging meaningful connections.
- You’re A Collaborative Team Player: You enjoy working collaboratively with a team to solve problems and explore new initiatives.
- You’re A Passionate Learner: You love learning and continuously building up your Jewish knowledge.
- You’re An Innovative Educator: You believe in infusing education into captivating experiences that stimulate the imagination.
- You’re A Facilitator: You thrive in creating spaces for students to converse, share ideas, and explore and develop their own ideas on relevant issues.
- You’re A Recent College Grad: Whatever your degree, you are excited about Jewish life on campus and have experience as a participant and maybe even as an educator in a Jewish educational setting.
- You’re A Creative Thinker: You are constantly reimagining the ordinary, seeking ways to repurpose and improve things.
- You’re A Bold Visionary: Think big and creatively, viewing everything as a possibility and embracing a risk-taking, entrepreneurial spirit.
~You’re A Springboard Fellow ~
What You’ll Bring to the Job
- 0 -3 years professional work experience
- Bachelor's degree
- This is an in-person role location in Nashville, Tennessee; remote work is not available for this position
- Confidence in leading and/or supporting student leaders in a variety of Friday night and holiday services, working to meet a plurality of observances and customs
- Rich experience with text-study as a learner and a leader, and a passion to create diverse options to inspire a love of Torah in our students
- Excitement to collaborate as a team with other Hillel staff members. You are ready to support them as they are in turn to support you.
- Self-driven and creative. You are not easily scared or discouraged if your first attempt at a program doesn’t go according to plan and are excited to head back to the drawing board and learn from previous attempts.
- Belief that our students should drive our Hillel and focus on creating opportunities that capitalize on interests and goals you discover about them through long-term relationship-building.
What You’ll Receive
- Competitive salary in the nonprofit marketplace. The salary for this role is $46,000 in year one of the Fellowship, and the salary is $48,000 in year two of the Fellowship.
- A comprehensive benefits package, including health insurance, retirement plan, Life, AD&D and Long Term Disability (LTD) insurances, Flexible Spending accounts, generous vacation/sick time, and parental leave.
- High-level professional development to help develop core skills in experiential education, including learning from some of the most innovative organizations in Jewish education today.
- $3,200 in professional development funds from the Springboard Fellowship to utilize over the course of two years.
- Intensive Jewish summer and year-long learning experiences that will provide you with the knowledge, passion, and critical tool kit to fuel your work building our Jewish communities.
- Mentoring and career coaching to help you during and after your Fellowship.
- A network of terrific colleagues from across the Hillel movement.
- Travel opportunities, both domestically and internationally, multiple times per year (if permitted, following COVID-19 safety guidelines).
About Hillel International
In 1923, Rabbi Benjamin Frankel started Hillel with humble means, a noble mission and a breathtaking vision: to convey Jewish civilization to a new generation. Today, Hillel International continues to enrich the lives of Jewish students and is the largest Jewish campus organization in the world at nearly 1,000 colleges and universities across North America and around the world. As Hillel evolves as an organization, the mission remains steadfast: to create lasting connections with every Jewish student that foster an enduring commitment to Jewish life, learning, and Israel and train them to become the next Jewish leaders.
Hillel is an equal opportunity employer. We are committed to creating an accepting and inclusive environment for all.